


Ten no Niwa

by darklilcorner



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:23:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9220604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklilcorner/pseuds/darklilcorner
Summary: A lucrative career and a forgotten moment in time steals Yūri from the figure skating world. Now he is the most wanted host at the Ten no Niwa-- a pseudo-traditional tea and bath house that offers a multitude of varied services beyond rest and relaxation. Friends have followed him into his new life, by chance and not, and new friends have been made. Yet, Yūri is still an avid spectator of the sport that had been such a big part of his life, so it's an amazing opportunity when his idol, Viktor Nikiforov, comes to Ten no Niwa and requests a private showing of the best there is to offer. It is the start to a story told before; six seeds will be planted in the heart of he who has ignored Life and Love... and the skating world will grieve.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by robinade.tumblr.com

Yūri woke up to his one-room-mansion, chilled by the open window and October air to the point that his nose felt like an icicle. From the futon on the floor, Yūri could hear the upbeat bustle of Saitama two stories below him, and the traitorous air brought along with it the smells of fried goodies already out to entice evening shoppers. He removed the eye mask that blinded him, only to have the westerly sun shine right into his eyes.

“Ugh.” He palmed his face, trying to wipe away sleep.

His old phone lit up in alarm next to his pillow. Yūri tapped its dismissal on the broken screen, the thing barely able to function as it was. It tried to wake him up every day at four PM, but Yūri was always awake a minute before it could make a real effort.

At the age of twenty-three, he was just old enough to like having an evening routine. The day started when he woke up, then he’d dismiss the alarm on his phone before it could start, rise, close the window, and then make his way to the bathroom. He washed his face and dabbed it dry, only for his eyes to lock onto his fragmented reflection in the broken mirror of his medicine cabinet. It had been two years since the mirror had met its current state. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember why or how it had been wrecked in the first place, so he kept it as it was.

Along with a few other items in his apartment, the mystery of the mirror was one of the things he struggled with daily. Maybe one day, he’d figure out what happened.

Yūri padded up to his kitchenette to start the wake-up coffee. The motions were the same as the day before; filter in, water in, coffee into filter, check to make sure the pot was on the hot plate, and then close everything up to hit the Go button. Yūri liked to watch the coffee brew, but pulled his attention away to go ahead and take his vitamins from the cabinet above the coffee maker, his sole kitchen appliance.

On the counter, his new phone was charging in its little docking station. There were four messages already. He usually only had one from his assistant at this time of day.

Yūri fought a yawn and lost. He picked up his phone to read them. He had taken the day off work yesterday, so they were probably important.

The first was from his mentor and boss, Minako. “Get down here early. Got foreigners tonight. Bring a smile. _”_

Foreigners were not a strange occurrence where he worked. It was one of the few establishments with a bath house that actually let foreigners in, even if they had tattoos. People from elsewhere loved the pseudo-traditional, yet completely indulgent atmosphere of the Garden, and Yūri was the top crowd pleaser.

The next message was from his friend and coworker, Yuuko. “You’re at the temple! Meet you when you get in!”

If Minako had him working a stage, then there was big money being thrown around. The Temple room was for private showings. Yuuko rarely had to manage the Temple for him anymore because he made more money-over-time as a host.

The third message-- “brt 15”-- was a copy of a hundred other messages in a one-sided conversation from his assistant Kyoko.

Yūri’s assistant was efficient and reliable. She would have probably been on a student council or be a class representative if she had actually gone to school. Instead, she worked for the Garden and took her schooling online. It had only been six months since Yuuko and Minako had hired her, her background some secret she refused to talk about.

Though the story couldn’t have been a good one. Few people ended up working in a place like the Garden if they had a normal life.

Kyoko had immediately been assigned to Yūri when she had filled in for Yuuko as his manager on a weekend. Yūri had really thought that he would be on his own, but instead Kyoko had made sure that not a thing was amiss and Yūri had nothing to worry about.

Kyoko would show up at his door in less than five minutes according to the timestamps.

The fifth message, from his best and long distance friend in Detroit, made his heart ache. “how was the open? team euro 2 good!!! _”_

Yūri had a bad habit of following the events that he used to participate in. So yes, he had taken the night off to watch the Japan Open live. The tickets had been worth it in every aspect. There had been the chill of the stadium, the thrill of the crowd, and the wonders dancing on the ice. It had all brought back memories of the person he used to be.

At twenty-one, he had walked away from figure skating as his career path and turned to more lucrative employment. But, he still had to _watch_. It was hard enough to pass on a chance to go to a competition when it was in Japan, but it was impossible to ignore when one of the competitors was the legendary Viktor Nikiforov.

Yūri had grown out of keeping the Russian man’s likeness all over the walls, but he still had a hundred photos saved on his phone from image searches on the internet. Last night, he got to see Viktor perform in-person, and that sort of thrill was going to keep Yūri warm the rest of the year.

_Bzzzzt!_

Kyoko walked in after her warning buzz on the doorbell. She closed the door behind her, but didn’t move from the doorway, “Are you ready?” The sixteen-year-old stood with one foot kicked out and one hand on her hip. She wore a gray tracksuit a size too big for her and an ugly green scarf that tucked her mussed black hair up to her neck. In her other hand was a paper bag from the pastry shop down the street. The motion of Kyoko’s light eyes in her returned gaze assessed his choice of non-clothes. “You… are not ready.”

Yūri considered his boxers as the only thing he had on, and then sipped at his coffee that he had poured into a travel mug. “Are those Danishes?” He deflected.

“Yeah, yeah. Here.” She tossed the bag and he managed to catch it without making a big mess.

Kyoko—bless her—took his nonchalant, pre-coffee behavior in stride and went to fetch his clothes.

Her first day as his assistant, she had walked into his apartment without using the doorbell, did not bring food, and Yūri had made the mistake of sleeping in the nude without considering that he had told her to just walk in.

The entire situation had been completely mortifying.

They both had endeavored not to go through it again, though Yūri never got to the point where he was fully dressed before she arrived.

Kyoko, for her part, adapted really well. She brought pastries every time to lighten his otherwise tepid mood, and picked out his clothes so that he could delay actually being productive. He was a morning person, this waking up in the evening stuff was not easy.

Leaned up against his kitchenette, as he drank coffee, Yūri tapped out a quick reply to his best friend. Phichit would have been asleep for three hours by now if he was behaving. It was Saturday though, so the chances were high that Phichit was not behaving at all. “Viktor was amazing. xtra money 4 front row was worth it. wywh”

Yūri had been close enough to throw flowers if he’d thought it would have been meaningful. As it was, he knew that flowers only made it as far as the Kiss and Cry.

Thirty seconds later, Phichit responded. “Jealous!!! I have opinions ttyl Ubers here”

“Catch.” Yūri looked up just in time for some of his clothes to hit him in the face.

His assistant went back and forth across his apartment as he got dressed in the jeans, shirt, and a sweater she had scrounged up. Kyoko cleaned when she was bored, and so these times when she was waiting for him to get ready were the times that Yūri’s apartment became organized. Almost respectable.

But there were the mystery things that she didn’t touch; the old phone on the futon and the legal-sized vanilla envelope on the coffee table by the window—bleached from the sun and weighed down by an empty sake bottle. These had been as they were for two years, just like Yūri’s broken mirror.

Yūri, overall, liked this wake-up custom. It was mostly done in silence, until he was definitively on the way to being human from half his coffee and a cream cheese Danish. Kyoko found his glasses, shoved them into his hand and then prodded him until he was out of the door. “We’ll be _late_.”

He supposed that being this difficult after he had just woken could be considered selfish. But, there were enough things that he had already given up, a little laziness wasn’t so awful. He pushed his large-frame glasses onto his nose; a relic from his days before moving to Saitama. With new lenses, they were now a good disguise for the walk to work.

The trip there was brisk for what were normally warm days. The freak cold front put a weird pressure in the air that had the going-home crowds on the streets walking quicker than usual.

Two blocks and twelve minutes later, Yūri and Kyoko rounded one hotel to get to an alleyway that would take them to a back entrance of another hotel. In a city as big as Saitama, there wasn’t a lot of room for a traditional Japanese building, so they had to go through the employee’s entrance and up twenty floors to the roof of the Royal Pines Hotel. The elevator opened up right into the rear genkan of the old-style wood building known as _Ten no Niwa_.

Minami Kenjiro was there when Yūri and Kyoko stepped out of the elevator. The kid was usually at the gate house in order to escort guests, so neither of them were prepared for the storm of energy that was seventeen-year-old skating otaku. “They’re _here_! I saw Viktor Nikiforov! I got to show him to the spa! And _Patricku-chan_. _And_ Radionova-san _._ Ah! _The_ Takahito Mura too—“

Yūri waved away Minami’s enthusiasm, caught on a name so hastily shouted. “Who did you say was here, Minami-kun?”

Minami short circuited. “Eh?” For a full two seconds. “You… you called me, Minami-kun!” His bright eyes were suddenly filled with tears even though he was grinning wider than an oni. “Ah! I’m so honored! This is the best day of my life!”

In the warm light of the room, Yūri marveled at how someone could have such vigor all the time. It was a never ending ride with Minami. It made Yūri dizzy and regularly confused. “Okay, but did you say that you _saw_ Viktor Nikiforov?” Maybe he was dreaming.

He nodded hard enough that Yūri thought the kid’s head would go tumbling off at the shoulders. Minami was squealing in barely contained joy, though Yūri could barely hear it over the sudden ringing in his ears. Viktor was _here_? No-- it wasn’t possible!

Doing her part, Kyoko sorted away Yūri’s outdoor shoes into their cubby and placed his slippers for him. She also untangled Minami from the sudden hug Yūri was too shocked to avoid. “Go to the front of the house already, you’re making him flustered.” Minami burst into a red as bright as the patch of his forelocks and hurried away without another word.

Yūri grabbed her by the shoulders as she was turning to lead him down the hall. “Is this a joke?” He really hoped it was the worst joke in history.

She pulled from his almost death-like grip. “Well it wouldn’t be a very funny one. Come on, I said we’re late, didn’t I?”

Kyoko lead him to the dressing room. She batted away every other person who worked with them, and their absolute need to share their excitement over the guests. Yūri practically hid behind her, even though she was nineteen centimeters shorter.

This was her job at the _Ten no Niwa_ , to assist him in everything that he needed in order to be the functioning prime talent and host. Often, that was managing the people around him because he got flustered easily and everyone seemed to want his attention. The rest of the time, she was managing his bouts of panic over whatever it was that he was harried about.

They made it to the dressing room with its hundreds of dark teak shelves and wall to wall closets full of costumes and accessories. Kyoko shooed a few of the working girls to the other side of room so that Yūri could have the back dressing area all to himself.

This was routine too, and it made it easier on him so that he could clamp down on the unexpected whirlwind of his mind that cropped up at Minami’s blurted story. He undressed, including boxers. Kyoko, without missing a beat, had his silk undergarment replacements in his waiting hand as soon as he reached out from behind the painted paper screen. When those were on, she pushed the screen back to the wall, and helped him dress in his favorite kimono. It was made of a material so clingy and luxurious it was far from the traditional stiff silk, and the solid color graded to a pitchy black at the ends of his sleeves and around his feet. She was just tying up his lace-accented, black obi when Yuuko found them.

“Yūri-kun! Ah there you are!” She bustled over. The Madonna of his early childhood was all dressed up in her favorite pink yukata, with real chrysanthemums held in her brown hair by a pretty wood and lacquer comb. She was petite and attractive with big, honest brown eyes. Her touch was warm when she took him in a fierce hug. “I was so worried about you. Did you enjoy the Open last night? Viktor Nikiforov is here, are you excited?”

Yūri didn’t know what to do with that information. “Really?” It felt like his thoughts were tripping around in his head, unable to form something actually coherent.

Yuuko nodded. “He’s been in the spa and bathing pool for about two hours now.” She fanned her abruptly blushing cheeks. “Ah! Do you remember how we used to copy his routines? He’s still _so_ pretty. I can’t believe he’s _here_.” She filled Yūri in on everything Viktor Nikiforov had been up to since arriving. Yūri must have been in shock because she helped slick back his hair, removed his glasses, lightly lined his eyes in black, and painted his lips in a faint shimmer gloss—all without him fidgeting. Kyoko hustled, handing Yuuko everything she needed in order to dress Yūri up for the night.

“He has a front seat in the Temple, so you’ll be able to wow him, for sure! I’m so excited for you!”

Ah. This was when it clicked. Yūri would be doing a private show for the man that he had idolized for half his life. If Viktor became a fan in return, Yūri could be spending the rest of the night pleasing Viktor’s every whim. That thought alone was too much.

His entire world closed down to the too loud beating of his heart in his ears. Every muscle began to tremble. His lungs felt too hot, like he would burst into flames.

Yūri just barely managed to choke out, “Yuu-chan, I don’t know if I…”

Both women stopped mid-motion. Yuuko pouted. “No, Yūri-kun, this is once in a lifetime! You can’t freeze up now!” She wrapped him up in another hug, which brought him down to her shoulders, and comforted him like she would when one of her daughters in a tantrum. “I know this big and terrible, but this also so exciting.” Against his ear she told him softly, “I’ll protect you, you know that.”

It wasn’t enough.

Viktor Nikiforov had been his obsession, star crush, and man of his dreams since he was twelve. The Russian figure skater was astonishingly beautiful, no matter the medium he was viewed from and his skate programs were all so exquisite that Yūri easily fell into awe every time he watched. Viktor had been the reason Yūri had tried so hard to make it as a figure skater.

Not meeting Viktor at least once during competition was still the biggest regret that Yūri had with quitting the ice.

He hugged Yuuko back, desperate for shelter from the deep pain that seized his muscles.

This was all a nightmare in a dream. What if he couldn’t perform? What if Viktor got bored? How could he live with himself if he ruined the only chance he had to meet Viktor Nikiforov?

“Don’t cry. It’ll ruin your eyeliner.” Kyoko said from behind Yuuko, making sure to flick his forehead when he looked at her.

The twinge of discomfort at the center of his forehead went counterpoint to everything else.

His hold loosened. “Pfft, who says that to a guy?” He shivered with a hard fought breath.

Kyoko—bossy Kyoko who never failed to be reasonable, “I say that to guys who are about to cry while wearing eyeliner.”

Yuuko giggled and patted his back. “You can do this, Yūri-kun.”

He began to breathe normally again, and he inhaled as much of the sweet air of the Garden into his lungs before letting Yuuko go and exhaling into his cupped hands. “I can do this.”

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Msgs @ darklilcorner.tumblr.com


End file.
